Robert Kugel's Analyst Perspectives

People who don’t spend much time analyzing the software market may have trouble understanding the differences between products in a given software category or the difference between two categories. This happens because vendors and commentators use the same words to describe different depths of functionality and degrees of comprehensiveness in one type of application. As well, there can be multiple categories of software that address the same general business issues but are designed for different specific uses. Not only is it worth the effort to sort through the labels and understand what does what best, but different categories of software that are sold and deployed separately can provide even greater value when used together.

Along with other aspects of the finance organization, there’s increasing emphasis on having the treasury function play more of a strategic role in the organization. Typically, Treasury is charged with keeping track of and managing cash. Especially in larger organizations, this can be complicated because of multiple bank accounts, complex financing requirements and many methods of receiving and making payments; the complexity deepens when more than one currency is used across multiple jurisdictions, which also can pose regulatory issues. Treasury’s primary directive is to ensure that all funds are accounted for and that there is sufficient cash on hand each day to meet operating requirements. To accomplish this, finance professionals must perform key analytic tasks accurately to produce a clear picture of cash inflows and cash requirements. Analysis often is challenging because these numbers are constantly changing and because the process of collecting, analyzing and reporting all the data can be excessively time-consuming if done manually. This is a situation perfectly suited for dedicated applications that automatically manage the data needed to orchestrate treasury processes and provide analysis to inform decisions. Yet our benchmark research finds that more than half (56%) of companies with more than 1,000 employees either use spreadsheets exclusively or employ them heavily in conjunction with a treasury application.